The Rating Percentage Index is just one of many factors used by NCAA sports committee when evaluating Division I teams for postseason selection and seeding. Divisions II and III do not use RPI data.

The RPI first was used in 1981 to provide supplemental data for the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. The Division I Women’s Basketball Committee began using the RPI in 1984 and the Division I Baseball Committee in 1988. Other Division I sports committees now using the RPI are men’s and women’s soccer, men’s and women’s volleyball, women’s field hockey, men’s and women’s lacrosse, softball and women’s water polo.

Currently available for public viewing is the Nitty Gritty providing multiple columns of selection data for every team and the Team Sheets breaking down every institution’s results by opponent RPI ranking. These are two resources that selection committees use when evaluating teams for postseason selection and seeding.

The RPI never should be considered anything but an additional evaluation tool. No computer program that is based on pure numbers can take into account subjective concepts; e.g., how well a team is playing down the stretch, what the loss or return of a top player means to a team, or how emotional a specific contest may be.

An institution’s RPI ranking consists of three factors that are weighted as follows:

Factor 1. Division I Winning Percentage -- 25 percent of the RPI

Factor 2. Opponent Strength of Schedule -- 50 percent of the RPI

Factor 3. Opponents’ Opponent Strength of Schedule -- 25 percent of the RPI